PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: journalism
American writer
Mark Twain was an American humorist, journalist, lecturer, and novelist who acquired international fame for his travel narratives, especially The Innocents Abroad (1869), Roughing It (1872), and Life on...
English author
Samuel Johnson was an English critic, biographer, essayist, poet, and lexicographer, regarded as one of the greatest figures of 18th-century life and letters. Johnson once characterized literary biographies...
political philosopher, economic theorist, and revolutionary
Karl Marx was a revolutionary, sociologist, historian, and economist. He published (with Friedrich Engels) Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei (1848), commonly known as The Communist Manifesto, the most...
prime minister of United Kingdom
Boris Johnson is an American-born British journalist and Conservative Party politician who became prime minister of the United Kingdom in July 2019. He left office in September 2022 after being forced...
Anglo-Irish author and clergyman
Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish author who was the foremost prose satirist in the English language. Besides the celebrated novel Gulliverâs Travels (1726), he wrote such shorter works as A Tale of a...
Irish author
James Joyce was an Irish novelist noted for his experimental use of language and exploration of new literary methodsâin particular, stream of consciousnessâin such works of fiction as Ulysses (1922) and...
prime minister of France
Georges Clemenceau was a statesman and journalist who was a dominant figure in the French Third Republic and, as premier (1917â20), a major contributor to the Allied victory in World War I and a framer...
American literary critic
Paul de Man was a Belgian-born literary critic and theorist, along with Jacques Derrida one of the two major proponents of deconstruction, a controversial form of philosophical and literary analysis that...
prime minister of Armenia
Nikol Pashinyan is an Armenian journalist and politician who serves as prime minister of Armenia (2018â ). He rose to power in 2018 on a wave of popular discontent against the ruling party, an event that...
Korean American author and journalist
For her writing, Korean American author and journalist Min Jin Lee has pretended to apply to Harvard Business School, taken a millinery class at the Fashion Institute of Technology, and played poker with...
English author
Daniel Defoe was an English novelist, pamphleteer, and journalist, known as the author of Robinson Crusoe (1719â22) and Moll Flanders (1722). Defoeâs father, James Foe, was a hard-working and fairly prosperous...
Hungarian political leader
Lajos Kossuth was a political reformer who inspired and led Hungaryâs struggle for independence from Austria. His brief period of power in the revolutionary years of 1848 and 1849, however, was ended by...
British journalist and politician
John Wilkes was an outspoken 18th-century journalist and popular London politician who came to be regarded as a victim of persecution and as a champion of liberty because he was repeatedly expelled from...
English author
Joseph Addison was an English essayist, poet, and dramatist, who, with Richard Steele, was a leading contributor to and guiding spirit of the periodicals The Tatler and The Spectator. His writing skill...
American commentator
Tucker Carlson is an American conservative political pundit who from 2016 to 2023 was the host of Tucker Carlson Tonight on the Fox News Channel. At its zenith, the show was watched by more than four million...
Saudi journalist
Jamal Khashoggi was a prominent Saudi journalist and critic of Mohammed bin Salman, who became Saudi Arabiaâs crown prince and de facto ruler in 2017. About the same time Khashoggi moved to the United...
French philosopher
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was a French libertarian socialist and journalist whose doctrines became the basis for later radical and anarchist theory. Proudhon was born into poverty as the son of a feckless...
Journalist who made sure that the women abused by Jeffrey Epstein were heard
Julie K. Brown is an award-winning investigative journalist for the Miami Herald who was described in a 2026 profile as âthe woman who brought down Jeffrey Epstein.â But before she became one of the most...
British American explorer
Henry Morton Stanley was a British American explorer of central Africa, famous for his rescue of the Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone and for his discoveries in and development of the...
American journalist
Janet Malcolm forged a piercingly analytical brand of American journalism in a career that spanned more than five decades and produced numerous nonfiction books, several of which originated as reported...
American writer and cultural critic
Renowned by generations as a quintessential New Yorker, Fran Lebowitz arrived in New York City in her late teens after being expelled from her New Jersey preparatory school for what she has described,...
British author and politician
Sir Richard Steele was an English essayist, dramatist, journalist, and politician, best known as principal author (with Joseph Addison) of the periodicals The Tatler and The Spectator. Steeleâs father,...
French author
Albert Camus was a French novelist, essayist, and playwright, best known for such novels as LâĂtranger (1942; The Stranger), La Peste (1947; The Plague), and La Chute (1956; The Fall) and for his work...
president of Colombia
IvĂĄn Duque is a Colombian centre-right politician, lawyer, and author who became president of Colombia in 2018. He succeeded Juan Manuel Santos, his first political patron, as president but was an acolyte...
American journalist and novelist
From 1985 to 2021 Carl Hiaasen wrote a popular syndicated opinion column for The Miami Herald. Hiaasenâs acerbic, often humorous columns tackled both Florida-specific and national issues. A lifelong Florida...
British politician
Henry Saint John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke was a prominent Tory politician in the reign of Queen Anne of England and, later, a major political propagandist in opposition to the Whig Party led by Sir Robert...
Iranian journalist and human rights activist
Narges Mohammadi is an Iranian journalist and human rights activist who received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2023. The award came after an especially tumultuous year of unrest in Iran following the death...
American journalist and social reformer
Born into slavery, Ida B. Wells would in her lifetime become the most famous Black woman in the United States for her meticulous, data-driven reporting that exposed the systematic killing of Black men...
American journalist
Steve Kornacki is a journalist and television commentator known for his encyclopedic knowledge of political history and the intricacies of the electoral map. He spent more than a decade as an MSNBC commentator...
controversial sports commentator
Stephen A. Smith is one of Americaâs most recognizable, most controversial, and most highly paid sports commentators. A fixture on ESPN, Smith is known for his blunt, quick-witted, and highly opinionated...
British journalist
William Cobbett was an English popular journalist who played an important political role as a champion of traditional rural England against the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution. His father...
American author
Isabel Wilkerson is known for chronicling the lives of unsung African Americans and exposing deeply embedded systems of social injustice in her reporting for The New York Times and in her celebrated works...
Who is the woman remaking CBS News?
Bari Weiss is an American opinion journalist who has written for publications including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. In 2025 she became the editor in chief of CBS News. Weissâs political...
American author and musician
James McBride is an American author and musician known for his acclaimed works of historical fiction and autobiography, including the best-selling memoir The Color of Water (1996) and the National Book...
president of El Salvador
Mauricio Funes was a Salvadoran television journalist who served as president of El Salvador (2009â14). Funes was educated in Roman Catholic elementary and secondary schools before majoring in communications...
American journalist and political activist
Mumia Abu-Jamal is an American journalist and political activist who was sentenced to death and then to life in prison for the 1981 murder of a police officer, Daniel Faulkner, in Philadelphia. Wesley...
Brazilian architect and industrial designer
Lina Bo Bardi was an Italian-born Brazilian Modernist architect, industrial designer, historic preservationist, journalist, and activist whose work defied conventional categorization. She designed daring...
journalist and professor
Nikole Hannah-Jones is a long-form narrative journalist for The New York Times Magazine and a professor at Howard University. Hannah-Jones created The 1619 Project for The New York Times Magazine as an...
Muslim journalist and politician
JamÄl al-DÄ«n al-AfghÄnÄ« was a Muslim politician, political agitator, and journalist whose belief in the potency of a revived Islamic civilization in the face of European domination significantly influenced...
French politician, physician, and journalist
Jean-Paul Marat was a French politician, physician, and journalist, a leader of the radical Montagnard faction during the French Revolution. He was assassinated in his bath by Charlotte Corday, a young...
prime minister of Israel
Yair Lapid is an Israeli journalist, television personality, and politician who served briefly as prime minister (JulyâDecember 2022). He also served as minister of finance (2013â14) and minister of foreign...
American journalist and government official
Samantha Power is an American journalist, human rights scholar, and government official who served on the National Security Council (2008â13) and as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (2013â17)...
British economist and journalist
Walter Bagehot was an economist, political analyst, and editor of The Economist who was one of the most influential journalists of the mid-Victorian period. His fatherâs family had been general merchants...
Palestinian American journalist
Shireen Abu Akleh was a Palestinian American journalist for the Al Jazeera news network who was known throughout the Arab world for her 25-year coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She was killed...
Colombian author
Gabriel GarcĂa MĂĄrquez was a Colombian novelist and one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, mostly for his masterpiece Cien años de soledad...
American journalist, pundit, podcaster
Ezra Klein is a New York Times columnist, best-selling author, and host of the podcast The Ezra Klein Show. He is one of the most influential liberal commentators in American politics. Earlier in his career...
American writer
Anna Quindlen is an American columnist and novelist who in 1992 became the third woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for commentary. Her columns were noted for seeming to speak directly to each of her readers...
Today show host
Savannah Guthrie is one of a long line of Today show hosts who hasâas the program demandsâmixed journalistic rigor with downright silliness. Consider that in her role with NBC she has: In early 2026 Guthrie...
English-born journalist
Christiane Amanpour is an English-born journalist who, as a correspondent for CNN, wbecame one of the leading war correspondents of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. She later hosted the ABC news...
American journalist and television personality
Megyn Kelly is an American attorney, journalist, and television personality who is known for her pointed interviews and commentary on the Fox News Channel. Kelly was raised in Syracuse and Delmar, New...
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